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Monday, 3 August 2015

Oldhammer Weekend 2015: Bryan Ansell's Miniature Collection

A great picture to start with - from left to right: the lava dragon by the looks of it, the Marauder giant and, of course, the iconic Citadel giant. This version is missing an arm. According to Marcus Ansell its about somewhere, so hopefully we can see a complete version of this incredible casting at a future event.

Welcome back to our Oldhammer Weekend coverage for another year. This post will cover the extensive collection of wargaming figures that legendary Bryan Ansell put on display at the Wargames Foundry. Of course, it was impossible to take a picture of everything - the collection is just so large - but I snapped away with the iPad trying to capture as much of the display as I could.

If you can remember the first BOYL event, we were treated to a single cabinet display that was a dream come true for many. It's a strange experience to start within inches of figures that you have studied for many decades in ancient copies of White Dwarf or other early GW publications. I have been lucky enough to handle several of the figures too, which really is exciting I can tell you! This time, the display had spread across a very large main cabinet with three additional cases spread across the stable building. There were thousands of figures in each case but represents only a fraction of Bryan's complete collection!

As before, I shall lead you through some of the pics I took and point out any miniatures of interest.

Bryan's famous Chaos army was on display as usual - you can see it in the chaos entry inside Warhammer armies. A weird and wonderful thing indeed that you can look at for many hours and still find new things.

A collection of old Citadel and Marauder trolls and ogres.

I was very pleased to have the chance to study Bryan's undead army in greater detail and I wish I had taken moe photographs now. Gorgeous - in a creaking, rotting way...

Of course, the collection is vast and contains a great number of beautifully painted historical miniatures. These warriors caught my eye as I was browsing that section of the cabinet.

A great number of different historical periods are represented. To the familiar to the very obscure.

The large collection of early eldar was a treat for the eyes - including that fantastic harlequin in the centre. It was fun to hear Tim Prow talking about the examples he had painted many years previously too.

More eldar in this rather dark photograph - can you spot the original harlequin miniatures from the 1980s boxset?

More of Bryan's extensive chaos collection. I snapped these figures as I couldn't recall seeing them before.

Slaves to Darkness era Bloodletters. Very, very nice to see these. Beautiful reds don't you think?

Of course, much of the Realm of Chaos era collection was on view including this breathtaking unit of Slaanesh champions Many of the figures here appeared in Slaves to Darkness and the supporting White Dwarf material. How many can you spot?

The original Orc War Wyvern in all its glory alongside the Dragon Master's Dragon.

Rogue Trader was also well represented with lots of pieces that I hadn't seen before. A heavily converted Nurgle Land Raider and Rhino share shelf space with the remains of a Reaver Titan. The titan leg is a scenery piece that I have not see before and I am not sure if a shot of it was every published in the Golden Age - anyone know?

Much of Bryan's Orc and Goblin army was in the display case. Here you can see the original Marauder siege weapons as well as several Citadel models that I don't recall seeing published. I love the shield designs on the stone thrower.

More of the Orc and Goblin army. There were loads and loads of great figures in this part of the collection. Note the brilliant 'ogre face' shield to the right of the photograph.

The 1980s Dr Who miniatures were presented once again as were copious amounts of very well painted Judge Dredd stuff.

Smaller scale miniatures, many of which were part of the Laserburn or Imperial Commander games in the early '80s, were on show. Can you see the amusing sphincter beasts?

Science fiction vehicles, epic scenery and Adeptus Titanicus titans.

There is quite a bit in this cabinet display. Along the back you can see the RT scenery statues that inspired the later plastic release. The bridge model appeared in several White Dwarf photographs while the ruined columns were part of one of the well remember scenery making articles Phil Lewis did. In the foreground you can lots of the Fighters Range knights, as well as a few Advanced Heroquest plastic figures. Marauder skeletons guard the bridge itself.

A close up of some more of the Fighters Range knights. The warrior with the horns on his helmet, sword raised aloft and painted with a blue surcoat is one of my all-time favourite Citadel miniatures.

The original greater daemons of chaos were lurking around in various places - including this Keeper of Secrets from Slaves to Darkness.

A greater daemon of Khorne stood guard over Ivan Bartlett's Chaos War Altar.

One of the larger pieces I had never seen before was this Ork books era piece of Ork scenery. The attention to detail was very obvious and there were lots of amusing little ideas at play here and there.

Space Zoats rank up quite nicely near a Rogue Trader beastman (when they fought FOR the Emperor) and a few of those unreleased multi-part orc models Marcus painted.

Yes mate; I'm sure the titan leg did feature in WD at around the time of first edition space marine! At the time it had some RTB01 ultramarine beakies climbing it with a load of epic models in the background to give the illusion of 'scale'.

Great photos! I think the Perry broo and Trish Morrison beastmen have never been bettered; they look great here.

One very minor point of pedantry: that's not the *original* orc war wyvern - there were at least two iterations beforehand: a Perry one (with variants, I think - or maybe just varied riders) and Tony Ackland's magisterial version.

The highlight for me was looking up stats for Orcs and Goblins in the Warhammer Armies book and then noticing Kev Adams' Orc and Goblin army in the cabinet to my right!

The Trolls you have pictured are from that army as is the Orc hero with back banner stood next to the stone thrower. I was able to spot Spiker Buboe in amongst a unit of Orc boar riders and the Kev's wolf riders were lurking in there as well!

The only slight shame was that I couldn't see his amazing army standard bearer and the standard bearer from the orc regiment was missing his banner - not too bad mind considering how many years they've been knocking about!